I switch to Jellyfin because Plex was always spamming me to try some off-brand streaming service. I know this behavior is so normalized that even Ubuntu Linux does it now but actions have consequences and it does drive users away.

I mean to be fair it does need to find a way to pay for itself. I paid for a subscription, removed those streaming channels and I don’t think I have been pestered about them in a long time.

It really doesn't though, and that's why I prefer an open source solution like Jellyfin.

I'm already paying for everything that incurs costs: it's my hardware, streaming my media, on my local network.

The only things left are users & developers donating time and energy to the project - and right now there are enough of us doing that to keep it alive.

This is absolutely not something that needs a subscription cost.

If you want to help - https://jellyfin.org/contribute/

> This is absolutely not something that needs a subscription cost.

Having a server you can stream from - you're right.

For the other features, you're likely wrong. As in - the open source space hasn't come up with a viable solution. I use Plex for DVR, and beyond the one time fee it works. For DVR you need to get the OTA channel guide, and all the reliable services out there charge a subscription fee - which over time will cost more than the Plex one time fee.

Also, how good is Jellyfin at skipping credits and ads?

As I pointed out in another comment - I'll happily use Jellyfin once it is there. As of now, every time I try it the experience is worse than Plex. So Plex it will be till JF gets there.

Wasn’t Plex’s prime advantage was being able to stream your media outside your local network? Which means the infrastructure and compatibility to keep that working, not to mention mobile apps which are locked down in app stores.

This is pretty easy with wireguard or tailscale.

Or - and I know people don't love this answer - just host it publicly. Yes - it requires some monitoring and a little bit of attention, but at the end of the day it's not that hard, and the risks are fairly low (even if it gets compromised - the world is not over).

Jellyfin has apps (which do incur a bit of overhead for maintainers in actual dollars) but honestly, as long as you're not on iphone, you can just build them locally and sideload them. No store/publisher required.

I primarily use the android tv client on a nvidia shield running a custom ROM.

https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin-androidtv

Then every user you onboard has to go through the same excercise and having your relatives go through all that is not fun at all

I don't know how to navigate Plex anymore. I used to use it roughly 8 years ago, and it was simple - it showed me my media, I could navigate through it, watch it, and nothing more.

I tried using it again 2 years ago - and I simply couldn't find my media anymore. I logged in with my account, and the settings showed me that it was connected to my server, but it showed me a bunch of random media that I did not add to my server. I couldn't find a way to navigate to my media after a couple of minutes, so I uninstalled it, replaced it with Jellyfin, and never looked back.

Maybe I was too blind to find it, but showing me random media instead of my own is a no-go for a local media server.

Yeah some time ago Plex started adding their own content or pushing you to streaming services, probably in an attempt to be more legitimate. I use Plex currently and I remember this being frustrating. With some configuration you can basically remove those options though. I mainly consume Plex through the Apple TV app and the UX (once configured) is above average.

> probably in an attempt to be more legitimate.

I think you're correct, and this is why I forgive Plex its annoying transgressions.

Yeah, there are probably ways to mostly get it back to what it once was. The problem really is that a) these ways weren't obvious to me at the time, and b) I don't trust Plex to keep those ways. Enshittification is sadly a one-way street.

If Plex kept my content frond-and-center and added useful features on top (e.g. Prime Videos additional information while pausing) I could even have seen myself subscribing to their service. But making the software annoying to use for its main purpose ensures I'll never spend a cent on it.

The streaming integration is pretty handy, helps answer the "what service is this on" question.

I don't think it's pushing you to them at all, if you're looking at a show or movie that's available to you via Plex, they're listed first.

Imho the issue is you need to configure this for every user, and as plex is local account hostile it means walking family through this/checking it’s been done vs local accounts that you can disable it via admin.

They show their hosted media first thing now, and hide your media behind some clicks.

This is exactly the issue. I’m sure most people who installed Plex did it to stream their own self-hosted media, but now Plex by default shoves in a bunch of streaming BS that they want you to watch, while hiding your own media behind a few clicks.

Plex has always had some minor frustrations, but this is probably enough to make me switch.

You shouldn't have to, but you can hide those panes and sections on the menu on first run and never see them again. I was forced to find out whe, an unseen update (on either system) made the Jellyfin app on my Sony TV incompatible with the Jellyfin server on my LAN, and I have never taken the time to fix it.

When you’re setting up a new server, it shows you a bunch of default Libraries for their own media. Unselecting them then should remove them from your list. You can also edit your Libraries list later. Managing Libraries is a pretty import part of Plex UI (and Jellyfin for that matter)

If you don’t know which library on the list to click on or drag around, maybe you’ll have a hard time in general.

> When you’re setting up a new server, it shows you a bunch of default Libraries for their own media. Unselecting them then should remove them from your list.

It's been a while since I last tried setting it up, but I can't remember anything during the setup talking about external streaming libraries. I tried setting it up in the way I expected it to work based on my previous knowledge.

> If you don’t know which library on the list to click on or drag around, maybe you’ll have a hard time in general.

I didn't see anything in the UI on my TV mentioning different libraries, or giving me the option to switch from the external Plex library to my own. At a certain point these things stop being user problems and become UX problems.

“Libraries” is what Plex calls “collections” I think Emby/Jellyfin use the same terminology, but don’t quote me on that.

After you create a Plex instance, you still need to go and create a “Movies” library, a “TV Shows” library, maybe a “Music” library, an “Audiobooks” Library and so on. Those are the ones that show on the left panel in the Web UI, TV App etc. It’s how you manage your media in general

During initial setup, Plex will show you a list of “Default Libraries” that have names like “Discover”, “Web”, etc. You can unselect them. You can also remove them from your Library list later on.

I would have loved to go through the setup again and see where exactly I got confused. For this purpose I uninstalled Plex and re-installed it. Sadly for the last 20 minutes it only shows:

<Response code="503" title="Maintenance" status="Plex Media Server is currently running startup maintenance tasks."/>

> You can unselect them. You can also remove them from your Library list later on.

They respawn.

I just looked this up in the iOS app, and you can just un-pin all libraries except your own in the hamburger menu.

They come back eventually. I’ve deleted the crap dozens of times.

For me it's two things:

1. You have to use their login service to log into a server that's... self-hosted.

2. The Plex app has very limited codec support, at least on iOS. In particular, I rip directly from disc and Plex would require transcoding for UHDs, or Blu-rays with TrueHD/DTS/etc. audio. Infuse has support for all of that out of the box so my Jellyfin server doesn't do any transcoding at all, and AppleTV/iPad/etc. are more than capable of decoding even full bitrate UHD content.

Plex is cluttered, messy, not free, not available on all devices, and harder to run on Kubernetes.

I can watch my Jellyfin shows from a Flatpak local client on my desktop, pause and move to my phone, pause and move to my TV. That's three different operating systems, and at no point do they transcode, because it's not going through a browser.

I've used Plex for more than a decade, and I've seen it drop in quality over the years as Plex the company has pivoted towards being a streaming service.

Personally, my main beef is that as a client app, the streaming service stuff has bled into the personal library UI in obnoxious ways. For example, the default "tab" is called "Recommended". This shows some kind of algorithm-based feed of stuff they think you want to watch. This tab is the default even for your own private library. Why would it suggest stuff from a library that I curate? It's very strange. In the browser, it remembers your last active tab to some extent, but the native apps (like on AppleTV) does not. When I open the app and go to a folder, I just see recommended stuff. Similarly, if you go to the screen for a TV show in your library, it will show a "Related shows" section. It's my library, I know what is there, I don't want these spammy algorithmic things.

Occasionally I run into other parts of the app, which invariably try to steer me towards using their streaming service. It's just a constant reminder of how it's no longer designed for my purposes.

> Why would it suggest stuff > from a library that I curate?

Mostly to try and help save time, eg to suggest you could resume a couple of recently watched episodes that you haven’t finished yet.

Or that you might want to watch something that was just added to the library in the last few minutes.

In most cases this has proved useful to me and I’ve found it to be a timesaver.

No, I disagree. On the Recommended tab for my TV show folder, the rows are:

- "Recently released" and "Recently added", which I agree are useful — but don't belong in a separate tab, as I always sort by recentness.

- "Start watching": Shows it thinks I should start watching; why? I know what I have and what I intend to watch.

- "Rediscover": Shows I have started watching but not finished, pointless. I could just browse.

- "More in [random genre]": Pointless, I know my library, it's my library.

- "Top rated TV": Ditto.

- "Recently played": Never use this, doesn't belong under "Recommended".

It's all just pointless stuff, and not appropriate as a default view when I'm navigating into my own library.

The webOS client runs at an amazing 1fps.

For random episodes Plex decides it must transcode (even though they play just fine over DLNA). (I have transcoding disabled so it just refuses to play those.)

Randomly just a blank screen after the last episode in a deck is done playing.

Resuming from screensaver ends up in a broken user select screen half of the time. One time it was even showing the user select while the remote was still blindly controlling the UI hidden behind the logon, as the last user.

> I’d be interested to know what you find terrible about the PLEX UX

1) Adding new users is harder than it should be (the sharing tab takes me to ‘camera roll’ and ‘synced content’ on my phone. ‘Manage library access’ is the correct section to go to.

2) Getting new users to watch default res (not transcode) is not easy.

3) Deleting the pinned crap that gets added every so often is frustrating.

4) Finding a particular setting when you want it is way too hard - settings are too spread out.

5) Splitting out content is irritating (eg mine versus a library shared with me).

6) The server can end up chewing up an absolute mass of storage with its logs, and app data. This is hard (impossible?) to manage from the UI.

7) Probably not a UI bug, but Plex loses the sound/video sync sometimes. Making the show transcode is the only reliable fix I’ve found. I wish I could chose to advance or regard the audio in settings while watching. Or even better, just not break.